Sport fishing boats are typically equipped with outriggers for extending fishing and trolling lines out and beyond the wake of the moving boat and into calmer water where the fish are more apt to take the lure or bait. Fishermen have favorite techniques for rigging, operating and maintaining the outriggers and as a result, a boat captain needs to be able to provide more precise control over the positioning of a teaser or lure. An article in Sport Fishing Magazine, Summer '96 quotes a boat captain as saying that it is not unusual for him to adjust his outrigger twenty times a day. Precise control of the outrigger allows a teaser to be brought close to the baited hook awaiting that trophy sized fish for the angler to fight, play, and ultimately reel in. In addition, the tag-and-release of big fish using multiple trolling lines typically gets complicated especially when the fish jumps next to the boat and gets tangled in the lines. The ability to adjust the outriggers controlling the lines as well as removing them from operation eliminates many problems. It is useful to be able to quickly adjust the outriggers for the varying conditions, including passing clearing a bridge under which the boat must pass.
Typically, a pair of outriggers will be installed at starboard and port gunwale locations just forward of the angler and fishing pole.
Various outriggers and fishing rod holders are known in the art. By way of example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,063,668 to Yohe describes a telescoping outrigger moveable between a retraced inoperable position within boundary of the boat, to an operable position extending outwardly beyond the gunwales. A telescoping spar is rotatably mounted on a base secured to a boat gunwale, whereby the outrigger may be swung about its pivot between the inoperable and operable positions. A detent rod is positioned for engagement at preselected locations about the pivot for locking the outrigger base at a selected incremental rotated orientation.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,993,346 to Rupp discloses an outrigger system that permits movement of the outrigger from a stowage position to a trolling position, and includes a tubular member having a castellated end for mating with a castellated end of a cylindrical element which rotates freely until secured by a collar using a cam to lock the collar against rotation.
In yet another outrigger device, described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,592,893 to Jordan, III et al., a sport fishing outrigger includes an indexable position adjustment locking mechanism for a rotatably deployable outrigger boom assembly. The mechanism includes a collar with a plurality of castellated, vertically oriented indexing slots which engage a metal locking bar.